I Can Love
by JacieNL
Summary: A psychodrama about the I-Love-Her-Like-A-Sister thing. One-shot. Ship: Harry/Hermione. Disclaimer: They belong to JKR; I’m just enjoying myself.


_Ein Mensch kann zwar tun, was er will, aber nichi wollen, was er will. (A man can do as he wills, but not will as he wills.)_

_-- Schopenhauer_

**I Can Love**

Harry Potter was staring at Ron Weasley. Ron Weasley, who had saved his life from the nippy lake and destroyed a horcrux just now.

However, he felt no gladness but confusion.

What they just saw remained vivid in his mind.

Those two little figures emerging from the glass windows, stood in the locket side by side like trees with a common root. Their hair was all in a tangle, swirling like flames; even their eyes, flaring like flames too.

"Who wouldn't prefer him, what woman would take you, you are nothing, nothing, nothing to him!" crooned Riddle-Hermione, and she stretched like a snake and entwined herself around Riddle-Harry, wrapping him in a close embrace: Their lips met.

The broken locket in his clothes seemed to burn again. Shaking his head emphatically to throw out that scene, he crammed the broken locket into his pocket more deeply, knelt down beside Ron, and placed a hand cautiously on his shoulder.

Ron shrank, but did not throw it off. He was sinking his head in his arms and shaking yet.

Harry realized that it's not from cold. He realized that he must say something.

"After you left," he hawked and said in a low voice, "she cried for a week."

As an unknown hand squeezed him inside, his stomach lurched.

"Probably longer, only she didn't want me to see. There were loads of nights when we never even spoke to each other. With you gone..."

He could not finish.

The locket in his pocket began to stir; there's something struggling inside, biting the shell. He even felt that he heard a voice hissing.

_How could the bloody thing still be alive?_

He stretched a hand into his pocket, grasping it so hard as wanting to choke the life out of it. The sharp nick stabbed by the sword pressed against his skin tightly.

The twitch in his stomach got worse; it seemed that something pressed up against his chest. He thought that the freezing cold water of the lake might get him sick.

But Ron looked up from his knee; the glisten reflected from snow lit up the solicitous hope on his pale face -

He's waiting. Waiting for Harry's word.

Then Harry gripped his own hand and went on.

"She's like my sister."

With a stabbing pain in his fingertips, the burning hot snake finally burst its restraint, escaped through his fingers.

_Sister?_ It mocked hissingly.

_What a sister would give up school and friends and even family for you?_

_What a sister would brave a vagrant and stormy life and even risk it without hesitation for you?_

_It's enough! _He wanted to roar, but his throat was parched.

The snake was sliding on his hand slowly.

_What a sister would do all that for you, though she never said "what if I don't care"?_

_Shut up! I know, I know it all.... so I love her!_

He paused.

_I love her. _

This sentence ran through his mind like lightning, shining quite clear on his heart. Suddenly, all of the puzzlement, confusion and hesitation melted.

_Yes, I love her. _

_I love her, so I was afraid of her tears, yet didn't know how to give comfort._

_I love her, so I'd rather her not fight with Ron, yet had a sense of loss when their fingers being close._

_I love her, so whenever I was lost, the rational voice in my ears was in the tones of her, and the first thought through my mind was her name, all the time..._

_Why, take so much time to find it out?_

I can love.

The sentence that he had said in Dumbledore's office flashed in a moment, like a cold sneer.

_If I could know it earlier..._

"I love her." He said, with self-awareness and forlorn desperation; a astringent taste filled his mouth.

He was staring at his best friend.

He was staring at Ron Weasley. Ron Weasley, who had saved his life from the nippy lake and destroyed a horcrux by the sword of Gryffindor just now.

Non-dissipated desire, sheer unexpectedness, grief and indignation at being abandoned, all mixed in Ron's eyes - it looked strange unspeakably with the starlight spilling in his cold blue pupils.

Harry began to tremble, for that gaze.

He relaxed his grip a bit. The snake didn't move, as if it's drowned in the tide of ecstasy and remorse drowning him but now. There's only a warm slimy feeling in his palm and a throb of pain at his fingertips.

He knew that he's going to lose the most precious thing.

_Why man always hadn't realized what he had until he's losing it?_

Finally, he heard his own voice, flying over the icebound lake, rippling in the silence of night, inane and remote as from a desolate valley. He said, "I love her, like a sister."

-END-


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